


Breathe In

by Coalmine301



Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Abrupt Ending, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drowning, Gen, Light Sadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:15:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26895040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coalmine301/pseuds/Coalmine301
Summary: From a young age Dooku had always enjoyed watching creatures drown.
Relationships: Dooku & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1908538
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	Breathe In

**Author's Note:**

> The nest WHumptober prompt was "where did everybody go..." but I couldn't come up with anything for that so have this mess instead (alt prompt: water).

From a young age Dooku had always enjoyed watching creatures drown. 

He wasn’t entirely sure when it started, but if he had to make a guess he’d say it began on a seemingly regular creche trip to the meditation gardens. He’d somehow managed to get separated from the others and end up near the massive waterfalls. 

Motion had caught his eye and the youngling looked up to see an edgehawk with some kind of rodent clutched in its beak. Dooku could only watch in morbid fascination as the hawk perched on the edge of a nearby pool and dunk its poor quarry in. 

There were splashes and strangled screams as the poor thing desperately yet unsuccessfully fought to get away. It was exhilarating watching this, as if Dooku was experiencing the rodent’s adrenaline himself as the creature slowly drowned. All the while the hawk’s hold never wavered and the rodent’s head never emerged from the water. 

All too soon the splashes died away and the water became calm once more. The hawk retracted its beak, holding a corpse rather than the lively rodent that had gone in.

What had happened to it? To the life it once held? Was it somewhere in the blue-ish depths below? Did it nestle itself nice and snug between the rounded stones below? Or was it dancing along with the slight froth stirred up at the waterfall’s descent? 

Dooku knows it’s not very Jedi-like of him, but he wonders… what would it feel like to drown someone? To feel them writhe and struggle in your grip. To feel them desperately claw at your unyielding hands. To see their own hands fall limp and their eyes roll back into their head. To watch their soul sink below the waves.

It’s only when he takes up the mantle of Sith does he get an answer: exhilarating. 

The twi’lek struggles and writhes under his grip. Sapphire limbs instinctively rip at his hands in a desperate bid for freedom, eyes blown wide in horror. 

But Dooku knows he is too weak to truly resist, let alone fight him off. And so it isn’t long before the struggles grow weaker and weaker before stopping all together. Those wide eyes roll back into the humanoid’s skull. And their soul sinks down into the abyssal, murky depths of the pool.

Somewhere behind him Dooku can hear his master cackling, pleased with the gruesome display. “Good, my apprentice, good.” 

He can’t wait to do it again.

* * *

As Count Dooku locks blades with his grandpadawan he comes to a startling and yet thrilling realization: Kenobi is weakening. His swings lack more and more force behind them, his defenses easier to knock aside. The huffs of breath are barely audible over the gurgling of the stream at his back, but Dooku heard them nonetheless.

It was then the count noticed the dark bags under Kenobi’s cyan eyes. The almost waxy pallor to his skin. Why the general always insisted on skipping sleep was always beyond him. 

But it wasn’t like he was complaining. He had started to enjoy the look of panic steadily growing in those azure eyes as he gradually overwhelmed the younger man. And so a vicious grin began to work his way across his features.

A quick swing and the general is disarmed, his lightsaber’s silver hilt clattering across the rounded stones. Blue eyes watch it fly off nearly a second too late. So sleep deprivation had dulled his reflexes too, eh?

A sharp kick to the chest was all it took to send Kenobi stumbling backwards. By sheer fortunate chance his heel gets caught on a particularly large rock and he trips, going down hard onto the river stones.

An idea suddenly comes to Dooku. Before Kenobi can stagger up again weathered talons grab the front of his tunic. Dooku easily drags the bearded man and dumps him spine-first half into those babbling waters.

Instinctively Kenobi is struggling up again, but a pair of hands around his throat is enough to keep him down. Fingers desperately claw at the sith hands but Dooku knows it won't be enough to free them. A firm squeeze is all it takes for those jaws to open up in an instinctual gasp for air. Only water awaits. So Kenobi coughs and chokes underwater, struggling for breath that would not come.

Dooku watches this all occur with a hawk’s intensity. How curious that an instinct in one situation could lead to life, yet guarantee doom in another. It's as if the lungs forgot they couldn’t take in water but decided to try anyway.

By now Kenboi is weakening, blue eyes growing glassy under the water. 

So Dooku carefully loosens his grip. Immediately Kenobi surges up with surprising strength, bursting forth through the surface. It’s almost as if life itself had returned to the young man’s form. He hacks and sputters, coughing up more and more river water. 

And this too Dooku watches with fascination. How the body is so ready to eject what would have made up its grave. As if the cells themselves are loathe to hold in the liquid any longer. Fascinating.

He is almost impressed with Kenobi’s performance. The young man has proven time and time again the ability to push through almost everything and this is no exception. It is a shame he didn;t choose to join the count that fateful day on Geonosis. He would have made such a promising young apprentice. More so than that fool Skywalker could ever be.

Even with the sudden burst of strength Kenobi is still weak and it takes surprisingly little strength to force his head below the waves once more. This time he uses his boot to keep the brat down where he belongs. 

It’s not that Dooku doubts his own strength or ability to keep Kenobi when he wants. It’s just that it’ll be terribly uncivilized to let his hands get scratched up again. He had already earned some impressive defensive wounds from Kenobi’s clawing. He will examine them later, perhaps, but not not. Now he will sit back and savor Kenobi’s torment.

The redhead’s struggles resume as he is once again dunked into the drink. They almost seem to be more intense now than before, as if the now learned fear of the brink lends more desperate strength. Blunt nails claw at the leather of the count’s boot in violent distress.

Though Dooku knows it won't be enough to fend off the inevitable. He’s held too many below the waves to not know the signs by now. 

And he knows how to make it slow. Painful.

Oh this will be fun...

* * *

Anakin Skywalker knows he will never forget the moment he burst out from the local undergrowth, drawn by sounds of struggle, only to freeze in horror at the sight that awaited him. 

Obi-wan lay on his back on a streambed, upper half submerged in the water. Count Dooku towered ominously over his form with a foot pressed against the redhead’s throat, pinning his head under the surface. 

And he can only watch as Obi-wan’s hands, previously clawing at the count’s boot, fell limply away. He can only watch as the water around Obi-wan’s head, previously frothed up by the Jedi’s desperate attempts to free himself, quickly calm. He can only watch Obi-wan’s chest rise and fall slower and slower before falling still completely.

It is then that Dooku finally seems to notice him. He turns with practiced elegance, sharp eyes seeming to bore through Anakin’s very being.

“Ah, Knight Skywalker. How kind of you to join us.”


End file.
